A Pitch-Forked Battle

Back from the globe-saving flight to America, Charles and Camilla are asleep, or engaging in whatever a Prince with designs on being his lady’s tampon get up to in private chambers.

But outside, danger lurks. As the Mail reports, an intruder has entered the grounds. The intruder is a man. The man is armed. The man is armed with a pitch-fork.

We are no experts in armed warfare, but believe that a pith-fork leaves a smaller carbon footprint and impacts less on the environment than, say, a pistol, sub-machine gun or tank.

Providing that the weapon’s shaft is made of wood taken from a sustainable forest, the pith-fork represents the green face of 21st responsible weaponry.

In the wrong hands a pitch-fork is a “potentially lethal weapon”, says the Mail.

Lucky it is that the man carrying this pitch-fork triggers the alarm as he crosses the Highgrove grounds. Police erupt from the buildings. The man is caught. And in his possession is found the pitch-folk and a sack.

What skulduggery was planned, we know not. But the Mail does say the man is believed to be a poacher. It is, therefore, unlikely that he planned to stick the heads of Charles and Camilla on two prongs of his deadly fork.

But he could have. It could have been worse. As a former Royal Protection Officer tells the Mail: “Supposing he was a terrorist with a rucksack full of semtex? “

We dare not to suppose. We, like the Mail, deal in facts.

And the facts are that Charles and Camilla have escaped injury to their persons. And that anyone thinking of taking a shortcut across the 347-acre Highgrove estate and looking to evade capture should go equipped with something more promising than a pitch-fork and an empty sack.